


Broken Warranty

by Jassanja



Category: WALL-E (2008)
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-12-19
Updated: 2014-12-19
Packaged: 2018-03-02 05:14:33
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,271
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2800868
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Jassanja/pseuds/Jassanja
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The story of a cleaning robot, who got corrupted by a lonely boy</p>
            </blockquote>





	Broken Warranty

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Clone](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Clone/gifts).



„Darling, have you seen the WALL-E?“ 

“No, sweetheart. Isn’t he cleaning the yard?” he said, as he unwrapped a piece of chewing gum, then let the wrapping paper fall to the living room floor.

“I don’t see him. I wonder if Georgie has taken him to his room.”

“No problem sweetheart, I go and look.”

He got up from the sofa, and up the stairs to his sons room. And indeed, the boy was sitting on the floor, one arm around their new WALL-E.

“Georgie, didn’t I tell you a hundred times, that you should not distract the servants? You can’t just take them to your room. WALL-E needs to do his job out in the yard.”

The boy just pressed the little robot closer to his body. “But dad, I feel so alone. All my mates have already gone to space, so I can’t video with them anymore. And MINDY… well, you know what happened with MINDY.”

He hunched down, to be on eye level with Georgie, and reached out to pet his hair. “I know, this was hard on you, when they came last week to dismantle MINDY. But they don’t allow any RoboCat’s on the Spaceliner. Otherwise all the RoboPets would take up way to many space and resources. That’s why they have to stay on Earth.”

“It’s just so horrible to still see all the bits of MINDY when I look out the window. Why could they not clean them up?”

“Don’t worry, son, they will get around doing it, even if only after we leave. But you won’t see any parts of MINDY laying around anymore when we come back from space, promise!”

“Then why can’t I play with WALL-E until we leave? They said on the HoloTV that his full cleaning program won’t be activated before we all have left for space anyway. And there is this hack on the superweb that can make him dance, and do funny movements with his…”

“No son,“ his father said harshly, “you can’t just get a hack off of the superweb and install it on the WALL-E. That would break his warranty. We can’t have that. And why would you want to program him to dance? He’s a servant. Servants don't dance.”

***

"Hello WALL-E! Wanna dance?"

It was well into the night when little Georgie went down into the Roboshed, in his hand a chip with the program he'd gotten from the Superweb."I know, daddy said I shouldn’t do this, but he has no clue about robots, anyway." 

He started working on replacing the chip. It didn’t take long. After less than twenty minutes, everything was ready.

“Now, let’s dance!”

Georgie put up some old music his mother liked, and the little robot came to live. He rolled this way, and that way, and then twirled himself around. 

At first it didn’t look very rhythmical, but soon his movements smoothed out, as he redid the routine again and again.

Georgie clapped his hands in excitement and started to twirled himself. “That’s it, WALL-E, that’s how you dance! It won't hurt your warranty one bit.”

***

A few nights later, Georgie came back to the Roboshed, another data chip in his hand. 

“Hey, WALL-E! I found something new on the superweb. How about we’ll teach you to say your name?”

It was hard work at first. The little robot was never constructed to talk, but the hack on the chip helped a lot.

At first, he only managed to get out the last letter of his name. But he did it so loud the walls of the roboshed shook, and Georgie was afraid, that his father would burst in, and give him another lecture about how WENDY, the kitchen maid, had worked well for years, without ever needing to voice her name. After long minutes of anxious waiting, it looked like they were safe after all. Georgie did some quick adjusting on the chip, and the sound volume came down, becoming a softer, pleasant speaking voice for a robot. Just like Georgie had hoped for.

And within a week the WALL-E was able to speak his whole name.

Georgie was so proud of him.

***

The day after the last humans had left earth, Robotnet send the full program updates to all WALL-E cleaning units.

Once all updated, the robots rolled out of their sheds, and went to work.They grabbed the trash, pushed it into their bellies, press it into cubes, and spat it back out, before putting the cubes up into big pyramids.  
They would work all day long, and in the evenings, when their solar-cells were starting to run low, they would return to their sheds.

Early in the mornings they would roll out again, load their cells up in the sun and do some other maintenance. Then it was back to handling the trash the humans had left behind.

This would go on day after day, week after week, year after year.

There was just one WALL-E unit that felt like there was something missing. It was all work and no play. There just was nobody around who wanted to dance with him, nobody who wanted him to say his name. 

In the beginning, he had tried to make friends, to find somebody like him. He had danced for the other,, but they would not join in. Soon they didn’t even bother to take notice anymore. At worst they would even try to sabotage him. Stand in his way, tripping him up, throw clusters of trash his way. 

After one incident he felt, that the Robotnet was trying to do more than just load the newest software version on his chip. It felt like they were trying to delete parts of him. Like his memory for dancing, for saying his name. But somehow it didn't work. They never managed to break all through, or to shut him down completely

But there was another mechanism triggered inside this WALL-E. Something that made him become more careful, more weary of the other WALL-E's and the Robotweb.

So he didn't dance anymore when another robot was watching. Didn’t say his name anymore, didn’t try and engage the other units to become his friends.

He became distanced. When the others shut down for the night, he would roll further and further away, finding himself his own shelter. He was still doing the work he was programmed to do, but even there he started to develop differences to the others. Not all the trash was the same to him. He poked and prodded at some things, and would take them to his new home. 

The alternate WALL-E was thrilled the day he found an old tape, consisting of the music, he had learned to dance to so long ago.

He regained his joy in dancing. Would do so more and more again, even if only in the safety of his own home. With his own personal space filled with his things and his music, he tried to become a better member of the robot cleaning army again.  
He returned to the fields of trash with the others, pretend to be one of them. The others seemed to all have had short memories, so they didn’t remember the little oddball he had been. He didn’t dance when they were around, and they didn’t throw trash at him anymore.

They could co-exist in the day, and go their separate ways at night. And this WALL-E continued to live on, to do his job and to dance, long after the Robotnet had shut down all the other units because their warranties had run out.


End file.
